


let me tell you a story

by turning_saints



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Phan - Freeform, all that shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 17:46:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18348599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turning_saints/pseuds/turning_saints
Summary: Dan and Phil have always been friends, living across the street from one another.





	let me tell you a story

In a little house on a little street, something that wasn’t particularly spectacular happened. You won’t have read about it in the newspaper, or seen it on channel seven during your evening telly-watching. You won’t think about it for a very long time, or tell your friends about it. The reason for this is that it’s not completely interesting or out of the ordinary. But we both have time, so I thought, why not just tell you?. So with all that in mind, are you sure you want to hear about it? Really? Alright, here I go.  
Before we start, I should probably mention that the beginning of this story is somewhat of a lie. The not-spectacular-event didn’t even happen in the little house on the little street, but instead it happened in a tree house in the woods behind the house. But before you learn about the not-spectacular-event, you must first learn about before.   
Our story actually starts on a summer afternoon, when a boy named Phil Lester was the ripe old age of seven. He was a smart boy, and loved reading, and counting things around him. 1-2-3 he counted the trees outside of his window. 1-2-3 he counted the pillows on his bed. 1-2-3 he counted his pencils. But the one thing that Phil loved most of all was his tree house. He and his dad build said tree house when he was littler than he was then, and when his dad had big smiles, and not many long car rides for no reason.   
Phil would sit in his tree house for hours, reading a book (they were mostly pictures), or playing with his stuffed animal (his name was Snuggles), or counting the rungs on the ladder that led to the tree house (he already knew that there were exactly fourteen).   
Everything was peaceful and quiet until Dan. Because with Phil, things were peaceful. But with Dan-- well, Dan was something else. A blur of colors and sounds and tastes and smells. Dan was the rush that you feel when you jump into a swimming pool. He was the exhilaration of skydiving. He was the anticipation of the warm summer days. He was the burn of putting your hand closer and closer to a fire, to see how far you could go. He moved in one summer, when the sun was warm and everything seemed to have that iridescent glow. He moved in across the street, so naturally he and Phil were best friends. That was just how things went. Things were simpler back then, when there were just sword fights with sticks in the backyard, and no storming out or tears or empty sleeping bags when you wake up in the morning.   
So they were best friends. And everything was good. They sang and they laughed, and every day after school Dan would come to Phil's house because he didn’t want to go to his own, and they would pretend to do homework and avoid answering serious questions.   
The years passed, and seven years old turned to eight, and then eighth grade turned to ninth, and Dan opened the door to Phil's room to see him kissing Kat, the pretty girl from biology class. That was when the friendship came screeching, screaming, grinding to a halt, and it ended in a door being slammed but not before a small sob was heard. It ended in a sprint down the driveway and a voice calling after him and not looking back, just running. It ended in coming home to the house that is cold and sprinting upstairs and ignoring the questions screaming in his head.   
Seasons passed and things got better. Dan laughed again, occasionally, with the friend he had made. This friend and heim had good moments, and they were close, but only because Dan ignored how she gazed at him, and she ignored how he avoided looking at the house across the street when they walked home.   
It was not the same. It really wasn’t. They didn’t speak, didn’t look at each other in the hallways, or in classes. They pretended not to care that they could see each other turn out their lights from their bedroom windows. They pretended not to see the other when they got on the bus. They pretended not to notice the pain in their chest when the other’s name was mentioned. It was a game of pretend, and that’s how it went for two years.   
Then came the fight.   
It was so loud that Phil could hear it from his bedroom. The raised voices, the smashing of glass. The slamming of doors, the crying. And then he could hear the boy climbing the tree outside his window, and the tap on his windowpane, and of course he was up and out of his bed, and across the room to look through the window. There Dan was, motioning at Phil to go to the tree house. Shaken, Phil complied. He climbed out of his window behind Dan, who was already running to the forest.  
When he climbed up the last of the fourteen rungs of the ladder, there he was.   
“Dan.”   
It took one word, and Dan fell into Phil's arms, shaking from either tears or cold or laughter. This used to happen when they were younger; first Phil would hear the fight, and then Dan would be there. And Phil would comfort him. They sat on the ground until the beating of their hearts subsided, and Dan could talk.   
“I’m sorry for leaving that day. And I’m sorry for not speaking. I’m sorry for not explaining it. I’m sorry for pretending that we didn’t know each other. It was awful of me, and I can’t believe that, after all that, I’m sitting in this tree house again.” It came out rushed, and in short bursts of speaking, and Phil could tell that there would be more to come. “I saw her with you. And I had always worried and worried and worried about it but I thought- I thought- well, I don’t know what I thought.” He considers for a minute. “Yes, I do, I do know what I thought, and I’m done being scared to say it. I saw her with you, and it hurt me, Phil, because I had thought that maybe you… that you would… that you…”  
“I know,” Phil interjected, “I do. I do.” Because he did, and always had, and always would.   
Over the next few months, they smiled, and laughed, and things slowly went back to better than normal. They knew what had happened, and as for Kat, well she didn’t come around much anymore.   
Phil and Dan went to school, and talked in the hallways, and went to Phil's house after, and stopped avoiding questions. No more pretending, just living.   
And so that’s how it happened, my dear listener. I told you that it wasn’t very special or important, just a story about a couple of boys and a tree house. But I’m glad that you asked, and that you had the time to listen, because maybe we should tell more stories like this. It might help some lonely people out. Anyway, just food for thought, but thank you for listening, and for liking the story. Tell your mother I say hello. Goodbye now.


End file.
